Bioshock: Merc Assault
by Bioshock842
Summary: What if Jack wasn't the only one drawn to Rapture? This story follows Nikolai Renkov and his team of mercenaries as they fight through the streets of Rapture on a search and rescue mission for their clients granddaughter and get a nice big reward for their trouble, but this is Rapture and not everything goes according to plan. When does it ever?
1. Welcome to Rapture

Chapter 1

Welcome To Rapture

He said it would be an easy job. Yeah right. Nothing we ever did was easy. That's why people hire us. And the money this guy was willing to give up made this whole job feel off, wrong. The job, simple: find the kid, bring her back, and get paid. Simple, but then why is this asshole willing to part with a fortune for something like this? Normally I don't stop to think about my clients' intentions, bad for business, but this time nothing made any kind of sense.

I turned around when I felt a hand on my shoulder. "So what's the deal, Nick? What the hell are we doing' in the middle of the damn ocean?" The voice could barley be heard over the wind and the storm would've been hell on anyone's sight, but I knew who it was. You could pick out Luke Cross in any crowd. He was big, tough and he could work miracles with a little bit of C4. Luke was the heavy hitter of my team and our demolitions expert. Piss him off and you're bound to get the barrel of a shotgun up your ass.

If you haven't guessed what kind of team we are by now, I'll just say it. We're soldiers, but not military. Not anymore at least. Now we're soldiers of fortune, mercenaries.

"I'll tell you when we get there!" I had to shout to even try and be heard over the storm.

Luke kept his hand on my shoulder. "Where is 'there'?"

I was about to answer, but before the words left my lips we could hear something over the rush of wind in our ears. I smiled. I knew what it was and that sound meant that we were close. I turned back to Luke. "The lighthouse, that's where!"

Now that I looked properly I could see the light on top of the colossal tower. That's not all I saw, unfortunately. Scattered out over the water just off of the lighthouse was the remains of an airplane. Luggage and large scraps of metal were still visible above the water and some oil or gasoline was still burning even in this storm. And I thought I could see the tail end of the plane sticking out of the water as well. They circled around the wreck until they reached a spot to dock. I hopped out first, Luke right behind me.

"There's nothing to tie the boat off to!" Luke yelled to me.

"Leave it! We'll radio for pickup later!" I replied as the rest of the crew climbed out of the boat.

Maybe I should tell you about the rest of the crew. Aside from Luke there's Gage Wells, Connor Benson and Mason Wright. Gage is our tactical combat expert. He's in charge of our underground connections. Anything we need; guns, information or anything else. If we need it he can get it. He used to be in with a gang in New York before he joined up with me. Connor is our strategist. He coordinates all of our missions, planning attacks, defensive strategies and escape routes. He even has some pull with some of the cops in L.A. And finally, there's Mason, our tech expert. He can open any lock anywhere, from a normal combination lock and even to the new electronic locks.

There was a set of stairs leading around the lighthouse. We each grabbed a case from the boat and began our ascent. The stairs led up to a large, metal door. I tried opening it, but it wouldn't budge. Luke couldn't even force it open. A second look at the door told me all I need to know. There were no handles or keyholes. I turned to Luke. "Blow it!" I shouted to him, the storm even stronger than before. Luke immediately went to work and the rest of us backtracked down the stairs. A minute later Luke followed holding a trigger in his right hand and the case in the other. Luke held the trigger up for all of us to see and pushed the button. And explosion followed right after, but it was barley heard over the wind in their ears.

We trudged back up the stairs and found the door partially open. The edge of the doors were bent and charred while some of the concrete on the ground had shattered. Without another word we all piled through the door. After they were through Luke and Gage managed to close the doors as much as they could.

"What's the plan?" Gage asked, no longer having to shout.

"All right guy's listen up. The job's simple. We need to find our client's granddaughter and bring her back safely. If she's dead we need to bring the body back for confirmation." I paused to pull a photo out of my pocket. It was a photo of the girl and an old man standing behind her. Both of them were smiling.. It was a little damp around the edges, but the girl in the photo was still recognizable. Holding it up to the group and said, "This is what she looks like. And the man in the photo is her grandfather and also our client. Any questions?"

"Yeah, I've got a question." Gage said, the scrutiny in his voice was easy to her. "Why the hell did we bring full gear just to get some little brat from a lighthouse?"

I smiled and chuckled slightly. "We brought it because of this." I told him, handing him the photo. "Go ahead and read it out loud."

He frowned deeply, but still took the photo. He turned the picture around and found a message had been written on it. "**Through the lighthouse you will find the path.** What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means that the lighthouse is only the starting point, not the destination." I told them. Gage handed me the photo and I put it back in my pocket. "And since we don't know what might happen between here and there I thought a little caution was needed. Happy?"

"How much is the old man paying us?" Luke asked.

"That's another thing. With the amount he's paying us there's no way this'll be a simple snatch and grab." I replied, making my way further into the lighthouse. Not far from the door there were a couple flights of stairs leading down. After that there was a small balcony looking over a pool of water with another set of stairs leading off to either side. Other than a few large metal plaques on the wall the room was empty. There was no other way to proceed. _Well shit._

Everyone else had followed me quietly for a minute, but finally Luke spoke up again. "Wait a second. How much _is _he paying us?"

I answered as I went down the stairs and further into the room. "He is paying us a grand total of $250,000.

As I spoke I heard all the footsteps following me stop and something loud dropping to the ground. I stopped as well and turned around. As I thought everyone had frozen in place and I saw that the case Gage was carrying was on the floor. _So that's what fell. _I just shook my head and continued down the stairs, leaving the rest of them to catch up. With the room being a dead end it wasn't like I could get too far ahead of them anyway. I looked around the room for anything that would take them out of here. After a second glace at the wall opposite of the pool I thought I saw something shine. I set my case down on the floor near the pool and went to investigate.

As I got closer I noticed a small metal plate with a big red button on it. Above the button 'Press to Call Bathysphere' was engraved. I couldn't help but laugh. _A call button, huh? Well, I don't know what a bathysphere is, but it looks like our only way forward. _I cautiously pushed the button and a loud voice echoed throughout the room. "Bathysphere en route, please wait." Once the voice had finished something very akin to elevator music came on over the P.A. system.

I turned back towards the pool and saw that my team had finally gotten over the shock of how much money they were making today. I quickly walked back over to the pool and retrieved my case. "All right everyone, gear up. I don't know where that thing is gonna be taking us or who's gonna be on it, but assume hostiles." I didn't need to look to know that everyone was already following my order. I bent down and opened my case. Inside were the tools that help me survive countless fights throughout the years. The first was basic, but essential: a combat knife. I took it out of its sheath to test the blades edge. It had been a while since I'd had to use it, but the blade was sharp as ever with no signs of rust. I strapped the knife around my waist so that it fit in the small of my back, easily in reach.

The second was a simple .38 revolver with a 2.5 inch barrel. It was simple, but reliable and it was the best sidearm I could ever wish for. It didn't have too bad of a kick, but it still dealt a good deal of damage. I loaded the pistol before I strapped it into a shoulder holster I was already wearing. I took a couple of small boxes of pistol rounds and put them into a pocket on my vest.

And last, but not least, was my faithful M16 assault rifle. This gun had been instrumental in all of his victories. It had good accuracy, front and rear mounted iron sights, full auto and a 25 round magazine, best weapon ever made. After putting the strap over my shoulder I reached into the case and pulled out two leather bracers and clamped them on. They were big enough to cover my entire forearm from wrist to elbow. I know a lot of people would call it strange or weird, but they had come in handy more times than I can count.

As a final touch I inspected the rest of my uniform. I already had on a set of leather guards on my legs over my black pants and a leather vest over a black, long sleeved shirt and black leather gloves. All o it still seemed to be in good condition despite going through a storm at sea.

My inspection complete I turned around to my team and saw that they were just finishing up as well. Luke had a pump action shotgun strapped to his right leg and a .357 magnum in a shoulder holster like mine as well as a few grenades strapped to his chest. He also had on the heaviest set of armor out of all of us. "Your still in love with those grenades, huh, Luke?"

An almost sadistic grin appeared on his face as I spoke. "Of course." He said, reaching back down into his case and grabbing a large black duffel bag out of it. "Though not as much as my beloved C4." He amended, earning a laugh out of the entire group.

Gage had an SMG strung across his shoulder and a crossbow already in hand. That was one other thing Gage was good at: bow hunting. He could hit almost anything from any distance with that crossbow. His armor was similar to mine. He valued old school armor and weapons above all else, one of the things that made me recruit him for my team, but he couldn't deny that sometimes modern weapons were needed, hence the SMG.

Connor and Mason wore little to no armor at all. They relied on stealth strikes over straight up assaults. Connor had a bolt action rifle strung across his shoulder and a .45 revolver at his side, while mason had only two .36 semi-auto pistols in a shoulder holster. Mason wasn't as much a fighter as the rest of us. He was young, only 17-years-old, and was primarily there for doors, safes and automated defenses. Not to say that he isn't deadly as hell with those pistols, however. He's still a good fighter, but he just isn't that good at it on his own.

Just as we all go set up the music stopped and the voice came on over the speakers again. "Bathysphere has arrived. Please have a safe trip. Good day." As soon as the voice ended something very large began to rise out of the pool. All of us instantly had our weapons trained on the pool. As it raised itself out of the water we all realized what we were looking at.

I lowered my rifle slightly as I spoke. "I think our ride's here." The bathysphere finished its ascent and a section of opened up to allow us to enter. I walked inside and Gage, Connor and Mason stepped inside. Luke, however, did not.

"Luke, get in here." Gage said impatiently.

Luke just shook his head. "No one said anything about going underwater."

"Luke you can't tell me that a big guy like you is afraid. Is that what you're saying?" Connor asked.

Even with the obvious taunt Luke wouldn't budge. I sighed and stepped out of the bathysphere. Luke backed up a step, but I put a hand gently on his shoulder and steered him away from the sphere. "Luke, what's going on?" I said my voice barley a whisper. "Are you seriously scared?"

Luke looked away from me. "I have always been scared of the water. When I was young my father and older brother took me diving. Something went wrong with my suit. I almost drowned. My father and brother got me out of the water and revived me, but I never went back into the water."

"You managed to get all the way out here, right?"

Luke just shook his head. "As long as I am not under the water I'm fine, but I can't go under, not again."

I sighed again. Luke had never mentioned this in the three years they had known each other. "Look, Luke, I understand fear, but you can't let it rule you." These words seemed to strengthen him a bit, but not enough. I looked back into the bathysphere and saw my team looking patiently at us. Looking at the sphere's interior gave me an idea. "Luke, look inside there for me" I said, pointing inside the sphere.

Luke turned around and did as I asked. "What about it?"

"Look how dry it is. If it had any kind of lea or rupture it couldn't have survived a trip up here from underwater, could it?" I questioned.

This seemed to comfort Luke more than my previous words did. "That… is true." He kept looking into the sphere for a few minutes before he finally nodded. "All right, let's go."

I followed him into the sphere smiling. I should've known logic would've worked over kind words with Luke. He had always been a logical man. Once again in the bathysphere we waited for something to happen, but it was clear it wasn't. Gage and Luke tried closing the door manually, but to no avail. I looked around the small sphere for any clue as to what they had to do. It was then that I saw a lever at the back of the sphere. It was made of the same material as the sphere itself and thus made it hard to see, especially with four other people inside. I moved Connor out of the way and threw the lever.

The door immediately began closing. _Finally. _Soon the bathysphere began to sink into the water and as they whet further down the passed underwater statues of a man. The man had his arms above his head, but his face was blank with no features that I could discern. Above each statue they passed was a plaque that read how deep they were. The last one being fifteen fathoms before a screen moved up over the glass. I looked to the back of the sphere and saw the light of a projector shoot out towards the screen. When I looked back to the screen there was only a picture. It was of a man in a nice suit and hat sitting at a desk with a cigar in his hand. At the bottom of the picture were the words 'From the Desk of Andrew Ryan'.

Another voice rang out through the bathysphere. This voice was male. It sounded like an introduction to me, but I wasn't really listening. I didn't care much about this guy. All I wanted to do was find the little girl and bring her back to her grandfather. That and get my share of the quarter million dollars. Halfway through the intro the screen moved back down and we all got a nice view of the ocean floor, as well as what seemed to be… an underwater city. _What the fuck? _Just as the screen went down I caught a few words coming out of the speakers. "I chose the impossible. I chose… Rapture."

I was too mesmerized by the scenery outside to listen in anymore. They had just passed a sign saying 'Welcome to Rapture' when they got their first real look at the city. There were signs all over the buildings indicating attractions throughout the city. I looked over at Luke, but it seemed like he was too awe struck to be scared anymore.

Soon we were moving between the buildings of Rapture and moving towards what looked like what I guessed was a docking station. The bathysphere moved into a circular rail of some sort and kept moving. The arrived in a vertical tunnel and the sphere did a quick 180 and we were now facing the inside of the tunnel. On the wall was an advertisement for a …_ telekinesis plasmid? What the hell is this place?_ The sphere rose quickly to what we all hoped was a dry dock, with the emphasis on dry.

The sphere stopped and we could see what looked like a train station platform. _At least it's dry. _The door opened and we all just stood there in the sphere for a second, none of us entirely willing to move just yet. I looked around and decided to take the lead as usual. Our group didn't have and appointed leader, but I had assumed the role early on when it was just me and Luke. I held my M16 ready in front of me, took a deep breath and exited the bathysphere. I vaguely heard the others follow my lead, but kept my eyes in front of me. "Luke, keep an eye on our six."

"Right, boss."

There was luggage strewn all over the place, on the floor and benches. And to our right I could see a massive glass tube with blue electricity humming inside of it. The sign next to it said, in big bold letters, 'Vita-chamber'. I turned my attention to my left, seeing as how the path to the right was a dead end. We went up a flight of stairs and turned left. There were a lot of bags and a couple of overturned trolleys in the way and we had to climb over them. I looked at our surroundings and noticed the place was almost in ruins. _I'm wonder what happened here. It's a wonder this place is still standing. _As we kept moving I noticed a toolbox a little off to the right, but it was empty. The door in front of them had nearly collapsed, but there was enough space that I could get my hands through.

Letting my rifle hang at my side I tried lifting the door up, but I wasn't strong enough. "Luke." I said and Luke came up from the back and Gage took his place. Gage put his magnum away a cracked his knuckles before bending down to lift the door. He and the door both groaned a bit, but it went up. When he got it up high enough he slipped underneath it so that he was directly beneath it. "Everyone move." I said and everyone followed me through the door, jumping over a charred desk on the other side. Just as we all got through Luke lifted the door higher and leapt through, the door slamming shut behind us with a sharp bang.

"Why do have to make that shit look easy?" Mason complained.

Luke gave a sharp bark of a laugh. "Join me in the gym sometime, Mace, and you'd have more muscle." He taunted as he joined Gage at the rear.

I raised a hand and shushed every one up. They all looked at me before turning to the spot I was staring at. Luke stayed on our six, but everyone else trained our weapons on the top of the stairs in front of us. There were some noises coming from the top of the stairs. Slowly I made my way up. Though the noises had stopped, I didn't let my guard down. At the top of the stairs I saw a door in front of us close and the switch next to it light up with electricity. I made my way to the door, the others spread out around me and keeping their eyes on the rest of the room, and stood in front of it. Nothing happened. I looked at the switch and saw that the electricity was gone, but it was still scorched. _We're not getting through this way._

I was torn away from the door by a loud explosion from behind me. I looked back just in time to see a large, flaming mass of metal get blown off of the balcony above us and land right in front of us. A second late insane laughter reached my ears. We all turned and put our backs to the wall just as a large group of people came running down the stairs on either side of us, all of them waving large pipes above their heads.

_Shit! _"Light em' up!" was the first thing to leave my tongue and nobody needed to be told twice. Every weapon in the room discharged at the same time. Luke's shotgun, my M16, Gages SMG, Mason's pistols, and Connor's bolt action. Enemy after enemy fell in front of them. It wasn't too long, however, till our opponents started shooting back. Automatic gunfire came from the balcony and we all ducked down instinctively. I looked up and saw one of them up on the balcony with a Tommy gun aimed down at us. A short burst from my rifle put him down fast.

After what felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than minutes, the assholes finally decided to retreat. And that was good because we had all used about half of our ammo already. I quickly reloaded my M16 while we had a break, because I wasn't sure when, or if, we would get another one. "Boys, if the welcome committee is anything to go by, I don't think we're getting out of here that easily." I said grimly.

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Ok guys, this the first story I've ever published on fanfiction and normally people say go easy on me, but I say screw that. Please read and review and give your honest opinion. If you liked it, yay. If you didn't, lay it on me, tell me what you didn't like and I'll do my best next time. If I get enough people who like my work I'll keep on writing. So it's up to you, but I'm gonna tell you that this is probably one of the duller chapters in this story that I have planned. So please keep an open mind!


	2. The Brute and The Splicers

OK. First I'd like to say thank you for reading. And I also want to thank the few people for following it, because I know the first chapter was kind of dull, but as I said before it was going to be the dullest chapter in this story. Also a little side note, I am kind of making this up as I go so don't expect future chapters to be uploaded as fast as this one, OK? OK, just letting you know. Also read and review, please! I can't get better without your opinions.

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Chapter 2

The Brute's and Splicers

We waited a few minutes in case the psychos decided on round two. When nothing happened we relaxed a bit, but jumped back to attention when there was a sharp bang on the wall to our left. "Luke and Mase, six." Luke and Mason both kept their eyes on the rest of the room while the rest of us were fixed on the wall as the banging got stronger and more frequent. The bangs got so strong that dents were starting to form on our side of the wall. I noticed Gage and Connor start backing up for more room and I couldn't help but follow suit.

Soon enough the wall burst open with the biggest bang yet, making all of us jump, and a massive man strode through in some shabby looking cloths. At first his steps were slow and calm, his sheer size causing us all to back up further. "What the fuck is that?" Connor whispered, rifle trained at the walking monstrosity. It was at that point that things got tricky.

When it saw us it seemed to go into a kind of rage, letting out a blood chilling roar. Without needing an order we all open fired, but our assault was cut short as the behemoth charged at us. I barley got out of the way in time, as did the others, but Luke didn't move. He dropped his shotgun and dug in place. The brute rammed Luke at full speed. We all looked on in fear and awe as Luke held his ground. With his full attention to the brute he moved to the right and threw the brute to the left so that its weight made it fall to the ground. Luke jumped on the guys back and grabbed a hold of his head in both hands. The brute struggled, but it didn't do any good. Luke had already got his head twisted around to one side. A little more and we could hear a small pop and the brute went still. _Note to self: stay on Luke's good side._

We all stared as Luke got off of the corpse and retrieved his shotgun. "Holy shit." Mason said and the rest of us were thinking of something along similar lines. Luke just laughed.

"Like I said, Mason, join me in the gym and you too will be able to have muscle like this." He said, flexing a little. We all started to laugh until we heard another kind of laugh. It was creepy and familiar. It was familiar because we had just heard it a few minutes ago.

"Let's move before wave two shows up." I said.

I moved towards the hole the brute came out of and saw a long hallway beyond it. I looked back and saw Luke and Gage already in their positions at the rear of the group. Nodding to myself I faced back to the hall and moved forward. The walls, floor and ceiling all looked like they were made out of cast iron and were covered in rust. The wall on our left, however, had a glass window. The other side looked like the ocean floor. _I forgot we were this far down. _Taking a deep breath I trudged on forward.

After about ten minutes or so we came to a T intersection. I looked left and right down both paths. The path to the left led to a staircase going up and the path going right stayed level and went on for a while, but eventually came to a curve in the hall. I looked back to my team. "Connor, you Luke and Mason take the left path. Me and Gage will go right. Stay in radio contact and make sure to mark your path if you have to take anymore turns. If you find the kid radio me and backtrack here. Understood?"

Everyone nodded and gave "Yes, sir's". Mason handed out a radio to everyone. "We're on channel five." He said to us all as he handed me mine.

"All right, let's move. And be careful." I said as me and Gage went down our path quickly and I took the time to look back to see the others already climbing the stairs. I turned forward in time to stop the bend at the end of the hall. I checked that there was a bullet in the chamber of my M16 and looked over to Gage. He nodded and I swiftly turned the corner. The hall ahead of me was short and led to rusty door. We slowly approached the door and backed up quickly as it opened automatically. Sighing, I went through the door and stopped dead.

On the other side of the door was a corpse, a very large corpse in a diving suit. We both quickly scanned the area, but couldn't find and trace of what had killed this man, though 'man' was probably not quite accurate. The guy was bigger than the brute that had attacked the earlier and had a very large drill still clenched in his right hand. I looked closer and saw that the suit was riddled with bullet holes and was slightly burnt, like it had been electrocuted. "What the hell happened to him?" Gage wondered.

I shook my head. "I don't know, but it's not our problem. We need to find the girl and get the hell out of here."

Leaving the diver where he was we surveyed the room more thoroughly. The room we were in seemed like some kind of waiting room. _Please don't let this be a hospital. _We moved on through a door, marking the one we had just come through with my knife, and we entered yet another hallway. There were a bunch of doors on both sides of the hall and I looked into one of them and groaned. Inside was a bed with white sheets and white pillows. There were a couple of once soft chairs, time and abuse rendering them useless. A desk next to the bed held a vase of withered flowers. And on the other side of the bed was some monitoring equipment. _It is a fucking hospital. _I backed out of the room. "I hate hospitals."

Gage smirked, but didn't say anything and he didn't need to. The whole team knew that I had a bad experience in a hospital a few years ago. Back when I was in the army I was in Israel and my team had to search and abandoned hospital. The problem was it was completely abandoned. A bunch of drug attics had occupied the building. They became hostile as soon as they saw us and attacked with anything they could find. One of them came at me with a large shard of broken glass. The whole mission was a disaster. Everyone, but my captain and I were the only survivors.

I have avoided hospitals ever since.

We crept down the hall as silently as possible until we came to a set of double doors at the end of it. We both move up and grab hold of one of the door handles each. The first attempt proved useless as the doors were locked. We took a step back, nodded to each other and kicked the doors, which gave way immediately. Luckily the next room was empty, kind of. Bodies littered the room. Most were horribly disfigured and the rest were so bloody we couldn't be sure of their original features, let alone what could've happened to them.

"Fuck my life." Gage whispered. "Who the hell is sick enough to do something like…"

We both froze as we heard a small voice coming from further into the room. "This way Mr. Bubbles, I can smell an angel."

It was instantly recognizable as a little girl's voice. We both took off towards the voice. We went through a few doors and around a corner stopping when we saw a small girl in a rag of a dress. I could make out an exit sign to our right and silently noted an escape path should anything go wrong.

"Is it her?" Gage asked excitedly. He was apparently as eager to get out of here as I was.

I quickly took the picture of the girl out of my pocket. I knew instantly it wasn't the right kid. "No, it's not here. We're looking for a brunette, not a blonde. And it looks like she's a year or two too young to be our girl, but this one might know her." Taking a small step forward I was about to try and talk to the kid, but stopped dead when a very large mass rounded the corner behind her.

It was someone in the same diving suit as the one we found in the waiting room, the glass portholes on the helmet glowed with a yellowish green light. He took one look at me and let out a menacing groan. _Shit. _I took a few steps back and he stopped groaning, but as soon as I did I gunshot rang out through the hall. The lights on the divers' helmet had quickly turned bright red. He turned around and roared and launched itself at a man standing behind him with a revolver aimed at him.

"Move." I said. Gage led the way through the exit we saw a second earlier and we booked it down the corridor and out of the range of the bullets. A few minutes of a full on sprint and we came to another T-junction. One hall kept going straight ahead and the other lead right. We were going to turn right, but someone came running around the corner and right into us. They ran right into me sending both of us to the ground, me on bottom. I found myself looking into the soft blue eyes of a young woman, eyes filled with fear. More gunshots sounded around the bend that the woman came from. We both bolted to our feet. She moved to run down the path me and Gage had come down, but I grabbed her arm. "Not that way." I said, pulling her down the remaining path, Gage on our heels.

I stopped caring about marking our paths quickly and focused on not running into more hostiles. This proved difficult as we didn't come to anymore intersections and we were starting to hear the maniacal laughter coming from further ahead as well as from behind us. We went through a door and were met by more bullets flying at us. I let go of the girls arm and aimed my rifle and I could barley see Gage doing the same with his crossbow. There were five people in the room, four of them were alive, and three of them were shooting at the last person in the room. He was shooting two semi auto pistols with incredible accuracy. "Mason!" I shouted over the gunfire.

He looked up at us as we took cover behind the counter he was at. Relief was evident on his face as he quickly reloaded. "Damn it, you guy's are a sight for sore eyes."

"What the hell happened?" Gage asked as he fired a bolt at their attackers. The bolt managed to find one of the guys in the throat. He quickly came back into cover and reloaded. "Where are Luke and Connor?"

"We started off fine, but it didn't last long. We were attacked in some kind of night club." He paused a second to fire off a few rounds at our attackers. "We ran for it and ended up here, but we got separated from Luke somewhere."

"What about Connor?" I asked.

He just nodded to our left towards the body on the ground. As I recognized the body armor on the corpse I felt a rage take over my body and from the look on Gage's face I'd say he felt the same. I came out of cover at the slightest break in fire and aimed at the guy on the right, letting loose a full hail of 45mm rounds and felt a kind of grim satisfaction as their target screamed in agony. He fell quickly and I turned my attention to the next shooter, but saw he was already down with a bolt through his temple.

I looked over at Gage and saw his setting another bolt into his crossbow. Nodding to him I moved over to Connors body. He was lying on his back and his bolt action was still clenched in his hands. I removed the rifle and straightened his body. After folding his arms over his chest I handed his rifle over to Mason. "I think its better that we use this than let one of these fucked up psychos get their slimy hands on it."

Mason just nodded, slinging the gun over his shoulder. I looked back at Connor once more. "I'm sorry, Connor. I didn't think this was going to be an easy job, but I didn't think we were entering a damn war either. Forgive me, my friend."

We had a small moment of silence for our fallen comrade, but knew that we had to keep moving or the guys we lost were going to catch up. "So where are we going now?" Gage asked quietly.

"I've got a safe room nearby. We could go there."

All eyes turned to the girl. I had kind of forgotten she was even there during the fight. I studied her for a moment. The girl had bright blue eyes and brown hair that went halfway down her back. And she was wearing a pair of baggy pants and a dirty white sweater. She was pretty, but her ragged appearance made everything else about her come off as unremarkable. "How near?" I asked.

"Near enough. Follow me." She turned around and went through a rusted metal arch which led to, you guessed it, another hallway. The rest of us followed, our guns at the ready.

"How big is this city anyway?" Gage asked.

"Too big. I've been down here for about ten years now and a doubt I've seen even half of this city. Then again, there have been a lot of tunnel collapses, so a lot of the city has been sealed off."

I saw Gage and Mason blanch slightly at this news, but didn't voice their worry. "What the hell is with those people who attacked us?"

The girl sighed. "They can't really help themselves. There hooked on something called Adam. It helps you use plasmids and tonics. They give you useful abilities, but there's a catch. The more you use it the more it eats away at you. It has a high physical and mental degradation. It's like a drug, addictive. The more you use the more you crave it and eventually you become like them." At first Gage had been interested in this Adam, but after hearing the side effects he seemed worried and slightly depressed.

The walk was surprisingly uneventful. We had been walking for about half an hour when the mysterious girl led us to what seemed like a dead end full of random junk, but she just kept walking and went up to a large frame with an advertisement for the same telekinesis plasmid we had seen on our way down in the bathysphere. She pulled the frame aside and showed us a small vent in the wall at the floor. She quietly gestured us through.

I crouched down and slowly crawled through. I could hear the others right behind me. The vent opening just went through one wall and into another room. The room was small, barley big enough to hold a small pallet that was serving as a bed, a small pile of canned food and bottled water, a lantern and some medical supplies. The others piled in behind me, making it a bit cramped, but still enough room to maneuver. After a minute no one seemed willing to say anything, so I took the lead, once again. "So who are you?"

"My name's Erica. Now, what are you doing here?"

_Question for question, huh? All right, I can do that. _"We were hired to come here and find some little girl. It's our client's granddaughter. According to him she was taken here a few months ago. I was actually hoping you might've seen her around." I pulled the photo out of my pocket and handed it to her. If she didn't look so scared her reaction would've been comical. He face contorted in a strange mix of fear, anger, sadness and confusion and her face lost most of its color. For a minute I thought she was about to pass out, but she recovered quickly.

"Where did you get this photo?" she asked. Her voice was barley above a whisper.

"Our client gave it to me. He said to bring the girl back unharmed if she was alive, if not we were to bring back the body for identification." I stated.

"Who is your client?"

"Jacob Denison." I said.

Her face seemed to blanch even more at the name. Then she shook her head furiously. "No. It couldn't have been him."

Gage and I shared a confused look. "Why not?" He asked.

Erica handed the photo back to me and turned towards a wall and didn't speak for a few minutes. Gage took a small step forward, but I kept him still. Eventually she spoke up, but her words shook me up so much I almost felt my legs give out. "It can't be him because Jacob Denison died of lung cancer ten years ago."

"How do you know?" Mason questioned, blind curiosity in his eyes.

"I know because my name is Erica Denison. Jacob Denison is my grandfather. The girl in that photograph is me."

She was still facing the wall, but that didn't lessen the impact of her words. I could feel Gage and Mason's eyes on me, but I wasn't really paying attention. My mind had become cloudy. I was sure that the man in the photo was the man who hired us, but if Erica was telling the truth he was already long dead. _Then who the hell did I talk to? Who the hell hired me?_


	3. The Little Sister

Chapter 3

The Little Sister

After this surprising revelation we all decided to rest a while in Erica's… room? I honestly wasn't really sure what to call it. She obviously used this place for her downtime, but for what else was still a mystery. I didn't spend a lot of time on these thoughts, however, because I was focusing on the fact that the man that had hired me a month ago had supposedly died ten years ago. After a few hours had passed, some of it spent either checking my weapons and armor or watching Erica move around the small space doing various tasks.

A small sigh escaped my lips. I still didn't know what to make of this girl. Her frame was light and malnourished, but she seemed to have enough muscle for a little heavy lifting. It was a fairly strange combination, but it seemed to suit her for some reason. I mean, I didn't know anything about her, but it just seemed to fit. _Then again, that combo is kinda… _I resist the urge to literally shake the thought out of my head. _What the hell am I thinking? I've got more important things to think about. Like how the hell we are gonna get out of here. _Gage seemed to be on that train of thought as well.

"So, what's the plan boss?"

_Good question. _The immediate concern was those splicers, as Erica had called them. With them out there it was gonna be hard to move around and finding the exit was going to require a lot of that, because I had stupidly forgot to mark my damn path. Either way, we had another problem. "We need to find Luke first. I'm not leaving anyone else behind."

Gage and Mason just nodded. The thoughts of Connors death weren't going away anytime soon. "It's not gonna be easy." Mason said. "I've been trying to contact his radio. But all I'm getting is static."

"Where do you remember seeing him last?" I asked.

Mason was silent for a minute. "I'm not sure. I did have a lot of lead flying at me at that point." He said with a tint of red on his cheeks.

"What do you remember seeing?" Erica asked.

After another minute or so more of silence and a frustrated sigh from Mason he spoke again. "I remember we went through another bathysphere. I don't remember where we went, but when we got there, there was some kind of fortune telling machine on the right and a lot of luggage and debris on the ground. Then there was a split in the hall. One went right and one went straight." He paused to take a drink of water before continuing. "Luke voted to take the right path while Connor and I took the forward path. Connor said we should stick together, but Luke said that we would cover more ground that way. We argued a bit, but Luke won. We went through a door and found another bathysphere dock. As we got near the water a bathysphere started coming up. The door opened and more of those splicers came out. They started shooting and we ran back to the bathysphere. We ran into more after we got back and you know the rest. Connor took a shot in the back while we were going for cover."

Erica nodded. "It sounds like Fort Frolic. That's Cohen's place."

"Ok, who the fuck's Cohen?" Gage said.

"Sander Cohen is the so called artist who runs Fort Frolic. I don't know much about him but you couldn't go to Fort Frolic without hearing his name. The place is basically Rapture's entertainment center. It's got The Fleet hall, Poseidon Plaza and a few other places. It was beautiful once, but Cohen's run it into the ground." Erica explained.

"How do we get there?" I asked.

She just stared at me for a few seconds. "You're not going, are you?"

"Yes." Gage, Mason and I said without hesitation.

Erica just stared at us, eyes wide with disbelief. "You are all going to kill yourselves for one man?"

"We've got to try." I said, standing up. "He'd do the same for us."

Mason nodded, but otherwise didn't say anything.

Erica looked from Mason to Gage and then to me. She looked into my eyes for a moment, searching for something I just couldn't see. At last she seemed somewhat satisfied. She sighed dramatically before speaking. "Fine, I'll show you to Fort Frolic, but if anything happens to me I hold you accountable." She said pointing right to me.

"Deal." I said, nodding slightly.

At that point Gage stepped forwards. "Okay, I agree with going to get Luke, but what about ammo? Do you realize how low we are?"

It was a fair point. We had emptied half of it on that first assault and finding more wouldn't be easy. _I think I've got half of a clip in my M16 and another full clip left. I haven't had to use my .38 and I think I've got 18 rounds left for it. Still not a lot though. _"Well, unless any of you know where to find it, we're just gonna have to be careful, quiet and, most importantly, not miss."

We all crawled out of Erica's little hide away. I came out first followed by Gage. Erica came out next with Mason right behind her. Everything was surprisingly quiet compared to our entrance show. Gage took point, Mason took up the rear with Erica and I in the middle. We moved quietly, Erica giving directions along the way, but our rout seemed empty enough for us to relax a bit. We were still tense, but boredom was beginning to set in. "So what's your name?" Erica asked abruptly.

"Nikolai Renkov. In front we have Gage Wells and in back we have Mason Wright." I said, pointing to each of them in turn. "The one we are looking is Luke Cross, demolition fanatic. That man can work wonders with a little bit of C4."

"Are you soldiers?"

I shook my head. "Not soldiers, but mercenaries. I was in the army at one time, however. And so was Luke." I started going into detail until we heard a familiar voice coming from around the corner. Unfortunately, that wasn't a good thing.

"I'm ready for dream time, Mr. B."

Gage tensed up and was going to move forward, but Erica reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "If you don't want to die, don't move."

Mason looked confused as he trained Connors rifle at the curve. "Ok, so we are just gonna stand here while that thing curb stomps us to death?" Gage says in a slightly panicked voice.

Erica just sighs and walks around the corner. "As long as you don't attack him or the girl he won't bother us."

We followed her around the bend. A little slowly, but still following. As we turned the corner we saw Erica walking calmly around the same monstrosity that Gage and I had run into in the hospital. I looked over at Mason and saw…terror…I think would be a good way to describe that expression. As we passed by him I noticed the suit on him was scorched and there were bullet holes. _He's seen some serious action. How much damage can that thing take? _"What is he?"

"He's called a Big Daddy." Erica explained as we continued our journey. "And the girl with him is a Little Sister. There are a lot of them through out Rapture. And you will never see a Sister without her Daddy. The Little Sisters gather Adam from the various dead bodies around the city and the Big Daddies are there to keep them safe. It's that simple."

"Just from looking at him I'm gonna say he's about indestructible." Mason said.

Erica gave a sad smile. "They're not, though. The splicers want Adam so bad that they're willing to risk death to kill a Big Daddy to get at his Little Sister. More often than not they lose, but not always. A lot of pairs have died lately and they don't get a say in any of it."

"What do you mean?" Gage asked.

"The Big Daddies and Little Sisters both go through mental conditioning. I don't know the specifics, but it basically makes them slaves to the conditioning. They do what they were genetically designed to do and that's all they know now."

"Kind of sad, actually." Mason whispered.

About fifteen minutes later we had reached the bathysphere. _About damn time. _As we were approaching the sphere we heard gunshots from behind us, making us all turn around and aim. I turn and look at Erica. "Get in the bathysphere." She had no trouble complying.

We all kept our backs to the bathysphere as we watched the entrance, Erica safely behind us, all of us fully expecting a group of psychos to come crawling through. What does come through surprises all of us. The Little Sister we had seen earlier came scrambling through the door, bullets flying past her. Just behind her we saw her Big Daddy firing what looked like a rivet gun at the offending splicers. She managed to crawl towards a vent on the wall when an explosion tore through the door and sent the Daddy flying into the room and landing in a flaming heap just near us.

Instead of climbing through the vent the girl runs towards her fallen protector. Without thinking I push Mason and Gage towards the bathysphere and run forwards and grabbing the girl before following them. I passed the girl to Erica before firing at the oncoming splicers. Behind me Mason had pulled the lever at the back of the sphere and launched us of to Fort Frolic.

I turned back to Erica as the hatch closed and saw the girl huddled at the back of the sphere while Erica was trying to calm her down. It didn't look like it was working, as the closer she got the more scared the girl seemed to get. "Is she hurt?" I asked.

"Not that I can tell, but she's scared as hell." Erica replied. "Why the hell did you grab her? The only person she'll trust is a Big Daddy."

"What was I supposed to do leave her there? You said those guys want the Adam she's carrying. I'm guessing that's not an easy or painless process." I said. I tried keeping my voice as calm as I could. I didn't want to scare the kid anymore than she already was. I put my rifle down and pulled my .38 out of its holster and set it down as well. "Put your guns down."

The other's done as I said, but they didn't seem happy about it. I then turned to the girl, who hadn't moved. I moved as slowly as I possibly could and held my hand out to her. As soon as my hand came close she cringed. "I'm not trying to hurt you, okay? I'm just trying to make sure you're not hurt." She didn't seem to either hear or care what I was saying.

"I told you she won't trust you. She'll only trust a Big Daddy." Erica repeated.

I turned back to her. "You're not helping." I turned back to the Little Sister, but she still hadn't moved, but before I could say anything else we felt the bathysphere dock itself. "What was she trying to do at that vent?" I addressed to Erica as I picked up my guns.

"She was supposed to climb through it. It's supposed to lead to wherever they go to rest. Unlike the Big Daddies the Little Sisters are damn near indestructible, but that doesn't mean they can go around indefinitely. They need to rest." Erica explained as the hatch opened up again.

Before we could move the girl ran past us and out of the sphere. "Hey." I called. She barley got ten feet out of the bathysphere when something dropped from the ceiling right on top of her. After a second I noticed that it was a man with a meat hook in each hand and one of them was rising over his head. I ran forward, letting my M16 drop to my side, and grabbed the man around the middle and lifted him up over my head and slammed him down behind me in the hardest suplex ever. Quickly getting up to my knees I saw the guy getting up again and, after a quick second of thought, pulled the knife out of the sheath on my back and plunged it into his chest. I felt warm blood gush over my hand as it seeped from his body. His eyes were focused on mine in utter disbelief. I pushed him backward as ripped the blade from his chest. He fell back and slowly went limp.

I sheathed the blade and turned back to the kid and walked over to her. "Are you okay?" I asked.

She looked right at me for a few seconds before running right to me and holding onto my hand and tugging on it. I leaned down and she attempted to climb onto my shoulder. I laughed and helped her up until she rested just on the back of my neck, her hands gripping my hair. She began laughing as well. "Let's go, Mister."

I turned to Erica and saw her staring at me with her mouth wide open. Seeing that only made my already wide grin go ear to ear. "You were saying?" I said. I turned back towards our route and reloaded my M16. _One clip left. Damn. _Looking around I saw the fortune telling machine Mason claimed to see so I knew we were in the right place, but just to be sure, "We on the right track, Mase?"

He just nodded. He also seemed to be staring at the girl on my shoulders. "Yeah, we just need keep going and take the right turn up ahead."

The only problem with that plan, however, was the dozen or so electrified wires stringing across the path. "How the hell did you get past this the first time?" Gage asked, eyeing the wires warily.

"They weren't here the first time. They must've been put up after we left."

"How do we get past?" Erica asked.

I reached up and pulled the kid off of my shoulders, despite her protests. "Very slowly. I'll go first and the rest of you follow me one at a time. Got it?"

Everyone nodded their agreement, but the little girl wouldn't leave my side. I tried explaining the plan to her, but she just shook her head and clung to my arm. Sighing I figured I'd just have to try and help her through it without getting myself shocked to death. That was the tricky part. The wires were not as close together as it looked like, but they were close enough to make this one hell of an obstacle course. And helping a small girl through it wasn't easy either, but we made it.

After the others followed us we decided to rest a bit before moving on. We all had leaned up against a display window as the Little Sister started skipping and playing a couple of feet away from us. After a few minutes a thought struck me. "Hey." I called quietly to the girl. She stopped immediately and looked at me expectantly. "What's your name?"

She smiled and said. "Ashley." Afterwards she went right back to playing.

A soft chuckle escaped my lips. _Simple questions get simple answers, I guess. _I looked over to my left to my remaining team mates. Mason was sitting on the ground and had his head leaning back against the display glass and his eyes were closed. _I probably should be getting on him for staying alert. Bah, screw it. _He'd had earned a little rest. Gage was also sitting on the ground, but he was leaning forward and had his crossbow in his hands and was searching the hall for any kind of trouble. And finally I turned to my right to Erica to see her staring at me with a confused look on her face. "What?"

She didn't say anything for a while, but eventually answered me. "I'm trying to figure you out."

_Okay, cryptic. _"What have you found out so far?"

She turned her gaze away from me and over to Ashley. "Not much really. You're insane, that much I've figured out."

I was slightly taken aback at that proclamation. "How am I insane?"

"For one, you're willing to risk your life for some guy. Also you were willing to risk your life again for some random little girl. And you even seem to care about the kid. I guess it could be call bravery, instead of insanity. Homicidal bravery, but still bravery."

I heard what sounded like a cross between a sneeze and a cough. I looked over to see Gage with his hand over his mouth and he was trembling slightly. "Laugh it up, Gage. Laugh it up."

"And that's as far as I've got so far." Erica stated, falling silent once again.

_Doubtful._ I looked at her for a few seconds, analyzing her as much as she had been me. Her appearance was that of a frail young woman, but after spending a few hours with her taught me that she's anything but frail. And it was obvious that ten years in Rapture had left its mark on her. She was closed off to others and only looked out for number one. _Just like everyone else in this hellhole. _It wasn't exactly the same, however. She may not care about others much, but she didn't seem to be interested in harming others to get what she wanted either. Life outside of this place could probably sort that out, but it wasn't guaranteed.

After a few more minutes we all headed out again. The short walk to the entrance was littered with bodies. I figured Ashley would be a bit scared seeing the dead, but she just skipped along beside me like she wasn't really seeing them. When we reached the door it opened automatically, just like all the others. It appeared to be an alcove with another door almost directly past the first. On both sides of the wall were three slot machines and on the right was some kind of vending machine labeled **The Circus of Values. **It had an image of a clown up on top of it and it even had a creepy clown voice announcing what it was.

"What the hell is this?" Gage chuckled. He clearly was as amused as I was.

"A vending machine, what else did you think it would be?" Erica retorted.

"What all is in it?" I asked. I still had my wallet with me and if I could just get some food I'd be a very happy man.

Erica shrugged. "Health kits, eve hypos, pep bars and sometimes even ammo."

I was kind of interested in what an eve hypo was, but I had to do a double take when she said ammo. "Ammo? This thing sells ammo?"

"Some of them do, but if you want variety I'd find an **Ammo Bandito **station. This one here will only have general merchandise. And don't expect any ammo for your some of your guns. They only have ammo for the guns you'll find here in Rapture."

I sighed. "So nothing for my M16. What about my .38?" I asked, patting the revolver on my side.

"That they should have, but like I said, don't expect much out of a **Circus of Values.**"

I moved up to the machine and check the switches. Next to each button was a label. Just like Erica said, they had pep bars, health kits and other snacks. It even had alcohol, but no ammo, much to my disappointment. "It looks like we're gonna have to go without ammo a little longer guys."

We continued further into Fort Frolic and into a large room with a large staircase. At the foot of the stairs was a large statue of a group of people holding four picture frames. In each frame was a photo. I went closer to the statue and saw that each photo was of four different people, all of them dead. _Who the fuck takes pictures of dead bodies and frames them? That's just wrong. _

"This is Sander Cohen's work." Erica said. "He was never right in the head, but being in Rapture has cracked the shell off the nut."

We decided to split up two and two, kind of. I handed Erica my revolver and the extra ammo and went with her upstairs with Ashley right beside me, while Gage and Mason searched around downstairs. Sidestepping the small waterfall in the middle of the stairs we reached the top. Moving along the hall we ran into another vending machine, but this one was defiantly different than the other one. It was a lot taller and it had two large metal mannequins of little girls. As we approached it Ashley went up to it and started dancing around it to the music it was playing. "I'm getting tired of asking, but what is this?"

"A **Gatherer's Garden**. It dispenses plasmids and gene tonics. And they all use Adam so you might want to avoid this particular machine. The mention of Adam sparked a new thought.

"Back in the Circus of Values I saw something called an Eve hypo."

"Plasmids use Eve to be able to function. No Eve, No Plasmid." Erica stated simply.

I froze when I heard Mason's voice ring out over the atrium. "Boss!"

I didn't stop to think as I ran back to the stairs, gun ready. Gage's voice had joined Mason's the closer we got, but he seemed to be cursing something to hell, though. We found them both in a little alcove with another vending machine. Sitting next to the machine was the body of a Big Daddy and in the middle of the area was a body with a giant drill sticking out of it. I cringed looking at the body. There was blood spatter all over the ground near it and even some on the walls close by. Gage was over at the dead Big Daddy, kicking it and yelling at it while Mason was standing over the drilled body. I shouted at Gage to get a hold of himself as I moved over to Mason. "What's wrong?"

He just shook his head and nodded to the body. I looked closer and saw a shotgun in the corpse's right hand. A feeling of dread came over me as I got closer. _That gun looks way too familiar. _The feeling got stronger as I looked at the body armor and recognized that as well. I almost didn't want to look at his face, but knew I had to. When I did my stomach just fell. "Luke."


	4. Author's Note

I don't think I like how this story is going at the moment, but I don't know if I should just nuke this story and move on to something else or to put a little moree thought into this one. I'd like you to decide for me. If you think this story is worth re-writing please leave a review. If I don't get any reviews this story will be removed. If that is the case I want to thank those of you who read this story and the six of you who liked it enough to follow it.


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